YouTube co-founder Steve Chen has made a $1 million gift to his alma mater, the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy in Aurora, to help build a $1.9 million “Innovation Hub” modeled in part after the startup collaborative workspace at the Merchandise Mart, called 1871.

School officials announced the donation Thursday, saying they hope to open the 6,400-square-foot center by late 2015 or early 2016. It will be an open space to house workshops, events for the Fox Valley business community, startup pitch contests and the academy's Total Applied Learning for Entrepreneurs program, which teaches students about entrepreneurship.

Chen, who attended the academy in the mid-1990s, is one of its many alumni who went on to make their names in Silicon Valley and the tech industry. The roster of alumni donors includes Mike McCool, one of Netscape's earliest employees; Sam Yagan, the co-founder of local startup accelerator program TechStars Chicago (formerly Excelerate Labs) and current chief executive of Match.com; and Jessica Droste Yagan, who works at McDonald's USA as director of sustainable supply. (The Yagans met in high school.)

With startup activity in Chicago intensifying, much of the local tech community's focus has turned to retaining homegrown talent in science, engineering, technology and math from universities and high schools. At the same time, academic institutions — including the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy — have started incorporating more entrepreneurship training into their curricula.

The academy said Chen visited his old high school last spring to talk with students interested in creating startups.

“IMSA helped guide me to the tools and knowledge I needed to develop my ideas into a successful business, but those tools keep evolving,” Chen said in a statement.